The dawn of a new day in Collinsport. And the Collinsport Police, to the considerable ire of not only the Collinsport Star but of town officials, are no closer to appending the serial killer who seems to be preying upon the lifeblood of the village – tourists. After a fruitless search of his property, Lieutenant Mills has brought Nathaniel Gregson to the Patterson Justice Center for questioning. But, as she will discover – there are ever more questions than answers.
Detective Frid slowly makes his way up the stairs to the second floor of the Patterson Justice Center, well aware that Officer Monet, to whom he had given a quick nod of the head in passing as he had mounted the steps, could not conceal the less than subtle hint of his annoyance. Although he had become a common enough fixture within the CPD’s justice center, this was still their jurisdiction – and his presence was just another constant reminder that they had yet to apprehend the madman decapitating tourists—seemingly at will.
A point that The Collinsport Star, its owner, publisher, and editor Tobias T. Tillinghast, the Mayor, and the Collinsport Town Council made certain to keep them well apprised. At the top of the stairs, both hands occupied with hot/cold butterscotch hued cups, he makes his way to Interrogation Room 2 and carefully opens the door.
The room was slight, dimly lit. The front wall was most taken up by the one-way observation mirror that allowed him to see the man sitting behind the interrogation desk.
Fird set the two cups down and turned his attention to the suspect.
Nathaniel Gregson, forty-five, five foot ten inches tall, weight 210 lbs. A farmer upon whose land two decapitated victims had been found – lying amid a bizarre ritualistic circle painted upon the ground in cheap white exterior paint. A strange mixture of esoteric symbols.- some of which Frid had recognized.
Officially he should have returned to Providence a week ago – but he had talked his superiors into allowing him to work with CPD. The killer was here in Collinsport.
In fact Frid had begun to suspect that the two murders in Providence had been a mere prelude – an invitation to Maine. He stepped over and looked at the stocky, ruddy man with rust colored hair sitting at the table. What struck him was how serene Nathaniel Gregson seemed to be – as if he were merely waiting an appointment. Perhaps the dentist.
The door of the interrogation room opened, “Frid.” Lieutenant Mills enters with a nod.
“Lieutenant.” He replies and hands her one of the cups.
“Thanks,” She accepts it and looks through the observation glass. “Been through his place twice and still can’t find anything – including several of his outer outbuildings.”
“You haven’t charged him??
“At the moment he’s a person of interest.” She told him, and then opened the door to step into the interrogation room.
It was far more brightly lit than the anteroom. It was only 9 am and she already felt tired – taking a sip from the cup, she grimaces. Damn! Tea. She cuts a look at the observation glass which reflected back only the interior of the room.
The man across the table from her doesn’t move, just sits watching her enter.
“Good morning Gregson. How are you doing today?’ She takes a seat before the careful arrangement of documents, folders, and photographs strategically placed upon the interrogation room’s table.
Gregson shifts his shoulders slightly and he looks at her expressionlessly, “ I think today it is more weltschmerz than ennui.”
Mills looks up from the folder she is opening, “Really?”
“Yes, definitely, I would say it is more world pain than mere weariness.”
“I see.” She resists a long sigh as she takes a sip of warm tea – god, Frid and his damned tea, if it were only coffee.
“You’re the replacement.” He states.
“Pardon me?” She asks.
“You’re the one they hired to replace the chief of police. The one they had hired previously – that woman.”
“Chief St. Clair? Yes, I am temporarily filling in for her – yes . . . “ She returns her gaze to the folder and the transcripts of Coral Hart’s statement.
“I see.” He replies evenly.
The door to the observation room opens and Lori Ipso – having just completed an interview to answer some more ‘routine’ follow-up questions, as well as being, once again, asked to flip through another series of mug shots to see if she could identity anyone as resembling the suspect she had seen the night of the grisly multiple homicides on Temperance Vale Road – slips into the dimly lit room and closes the door carefully behind her. She’s heard that they have brought Nathaniel Gregson in for questioning – and with her curiosity she is constantly finding herself going down any number of rabbit holes.
“I’m sorry and you are?”
The voice startles her in the dimly lit room as she looks over to see Detective Frid, standing with his hands clasped behind his back as he watches Lieutenant Mills and Nathaniel Gregson through the one-way glass of the observation room.
“Lori Ipso. Author.”
“Ah, yes, Lori Ipso.’ He replies thoughtfully.
Lieutenant Mills sets aside the steaming cup of English Breakfast tea and turns a page in the open folder before her, ‘So, you’re a farmer.”
“Well, I own a farm. Does that make me a farmer? I’m not sure you could call me a farmer—as I am not good with growing things. I tend to let my son do that.”
She nods, “Your son Ezra?”
“Ezra—right.”
He takes out a pack of Gold Marlboros from the left pocket of his plaid, flannel shirt, “Mind if I smoke, it helps me think, you know.”
Mills shrugs, “Ok, Gregson. As long as it helps you think.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” He says.
“Does your family live on the farm with you?”
“There’s me and my boy, Ezra.” He tears the cellophane from the top of the pack slowly and then looks for someplace to put it, then slips it into his jean pocket.
Detective Frid returns his gaze to the man seated across from Lieutenant Mills, “As I understand it, Miss Ipso, you were a witness to the crime – although . . . your description doesn’t seem to match Mr. Gregson here.”
“I never said it was Gregson.” She replies.
He looks at her, “So, you know him?”
“I’ve seen him around Collinspsort – yes.” Lori says inching further into the room, which is sparsely furnished. A table, a couple of bookcases, the nearest one revealing a collection of tumbledown yellow binders marked CPD “The person I saw, as I said, looked more as if he were out of a Charles Dickens’ novel. Gregson looks more like he’s out of an Erskine Caldwell – “
“Right.”
“Ah, so you read, Detective Frid?”
Close enough now she can see into the interrogation room, she watches as Gregson puts a cigarette between his lips. Her fingers twitching from old habits.
“Mr. Gregson, can you tell me where you were from 1-3 in the morning of October 12th?” Lieutenant Mills asks looking up now directly into Nathaniel Gregson’s eyes.
He flicks open his zippo and lights a cigarette. Snaps it shut and places it carefully atop the pack and exhales a long plume of smoke: “I would think at about that time I might have been sleeping.”
Lori Ipso watching exhales with him.
There is something about Gregson that Mills instantly dislikes. “Alone?”
“Sleeping? Yes.” He replies, “So, are you interested in farming?”
Mills looks at him.
“It’s sort of like your own job, don’t you think?”
“And how is that?”
“You take care of the living and weed out the dead.”
Lieutenant Mills sits back and contemplates Gregson, “Do a lot of weeding Mr. Gregson?”
“I leave that to my son.”
She looks at her notes. “Ezra?”
“Yes.” Smoke issuing out around his lips.
“Mr. Gregson, you have been told why you have been called here this morning, yes?”
He sits back in his chair.
“You know I was surprised, most of the CPD staff didn’t seemed very well versed on what a Dickens character was—“ Lori says watching the red glowing ember of the cigarette.
“Well, I am from Providence.” He informs her.
“Yeah, well, that’s little excuse, you know. What with how many channels airing how many mundanely sluggish versions of just one of his stories every Christmas – you would think they would have a clue.”
Gregson takes a long draw of the cigarette, “Well from what I understand you want to talk to me about some occurrences that happened on my farm — so . . . I am guessing that was October 12th.”
Mills puts down the cup, “Not an occurrence Mr. Gregson. A murder.”
“Several—or, so I have heard.”
“And what have you heard.”
“Only what I have been told.”
“He is far too evasive.” Frid said looking through the observation glass.
“You think he knows something?” Lori asked, only the Detective did not reply.
“Your son, Ezra.’ She asks, “Where was he at the time?”
He looks at his cigarette for a moment, “I think . . . mine you . . . as I am not certain, but I think we was at that strip joint run by Auntie H. Now of course, he didn’t tell me where he was but then he’s a very tight lipped boy.”
“Does he go there often?” She sits back.
“He’s rather hedonistic you know.” He takes a drag off his cigarette, “But then didn’t Freud say it was Sex and Death. Death and Sex that kept us all going around and round on this mundane old world of ours?”
Mill is not in any mood to get into a discussion of Freud this early in the morning, “Where is Ezra now?”
“Of that, I am not certain, Lieutenant, not certain at all. The boy has been staying out late and he was not home this morning.” Gregson says and looks for someplace to put the ashes of his cigarette.
Mills pushes the cup of tea forward for him to use.
“So Ezra likes strip clubs.” Mills states more than asks, “Does he do much weeding?”
“On occasion.” Gregson replies and looks toward what appears to be a mirror.
Lori Ipso steps back feeling his gaze.
“Could you describe your son for me.”
“Persistent.”
She fights the urge to rub her temple, “A physical description.”
“Well, let’s see. He’s about 5 foot 10. Say about 180 lbs. Brown hair – like his mother.” He seems to sit and ponder that for a moment, then continues, “Can’t say what he was last wearing, as I don’t recall.”
“His mother?”
“She’s dead. Yet another weed I am sorry to say.” He cranes his neck to look at the open folder.
He spots a photo of one of the victims.
Mills pulls out the artist’s drawing created from Lori Ipso’s description, “Do you recognize this man Mr. Gregson?”
She passes the sketch over to him.
He looks at it and frowns. “Not from around here I would say.”
“Have you seen this man. On or near your farm?”
“Lieutenant, you know what a Meme is?”
Frid steps forward, “Interesting.”
“Are you talking about cats on the internet?” She takes the sketch back.
“Cats? No . . . I am talking about a concept. A concept that was formulated by the German researcher Richard Semon.”
She leans forward, “And what does that have to do with any of this?” She pushes forward a photo of one of the decapitated victims.
He looks at it. Takes another long draw off the cigarette and then looks up at her. “The term, it was taken from the Greek goddess for Memory.”
Lori Ispo moves closer to the glass, “My he is rather oddly well versed for an agricultural expert.”
“You see, Semon’s thesis is encapsulated in his book The Mneme, which I think was published in English in 1921.” He squints against the cigarette some, “Basically his theory is that there is an external stimulus that affects an organic body, accompanied by a physiological change in that body—this stimulus is a trigger, a word, or like a picture, that causes an effect similar to a virus.”
“A virus? Mr. Gregson, we’re investigating a series of murders, not a metaphysical construct.”
“Are we?” He pauses for a moment to look at the ashes on the end of his cigarette, “Perhaps murder is a metaphysical construct.”
Frid looks at Ipso, “You are sure you did not see him that night?”
Ipso looks over at him, “I am quite certain.”
“Perhaps a trigger for something else.” Gregson adds.
“For a farmer, you certainly are the philosopher. Mr. Gregson.” Lieutenant Mills replies and places the photo back in the evidence folder, “I would like to question your son. If you could tell us when he shows up again . . . “
“I mean I understand your dilemma — the deaths of innocents.” He tells her, “Randomly selected, or so one would think, but then perhaps not.”
The Lieutenant, who was about to stand up to leave, opens another folder and reveals the photo of the white symbol that was painted on the grounds of Gregson’s farm near the Temperance Vale Road. “Does this mean anything to you?”
“Arcane occult symbols. Ritualistic – triggers. Words are symbols. Symbols for words.” He tells her looking at the photo and then up at her. “It all ties back you see to the Mneme. Wired and re-wired within the brain. As you say, I am just a poor old farmer, but as I understand it, the initial effect of the mneme on the organism is an irritation of the nerves. The immediate sensation. Followed by an effect on organs far removed from the initial effect. Muscle and glands. Secretions., which has an immediate effect at the cellular level. Now of course, the initial stimulus may be of short duration, ” he flicks ashes into the tea,” But the after-effects? They may linger for some time. It is never a question of just one cause. One effect. But rather one or more causes, in combination with all other relevant factors present at the time, producing at least one and probably several effects. These effects permanently change the organism, a process that Semon called engraphic action, as he says, because a permanent record has been written or engraved, on the organism.”
She sits for a long moment and then places the photo of the symbol back in the folder, closes it and stands up – yet another of these Collinsport loonies – only she begins to suspect this loony bares further investigation. She wants to send some officers over his farm again . . . check for any more weeding.
But at the moment, all she has is her suspicions. “I wouldn’t be planning any trips, Mr. Gregson.”
“If you want answers Lieutenant you have to start asking the right questions.”
“Oh—and what are the right questions?”
“I can think of one in in particular.”
“Yes?”
“Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”
Lori Ipso hearing this suddenly turns away from the glass and closes her eyes, “I would advise you to look away detective.”
Frid is silent.
Lieutenant Mills’ eyes spark.
“Mr. Gregson, I have asked you here to answer questions regarding three murders that took place on your property. Not to discuss mnemes or Freud. Or any other crazy s**t. Murder is not a concept. And contrary to popular report, these murders are not at all random. All of the victims were tourists.” She tells him with some irritation, “And no—I have not seen any yellow signs . . . . other than Yield signs . . . and no, I do not subscribe to the Collinsport ‘History” mumbo-jumbo before you ask. Crime is not committed by the bogeymen. Crime is committed by criminals. And fancy philosophical theories by Germans in the 1920’s only got us even more horrendous criminals who for all their theories of superiority eventually found themselves answering to the law. Now—unless you have some other bit of information that is not an incoherent ramble about organisms, I think our interview is over.” And she turns to leave.
“Well, Chief Mills, the interview may be over – but not your problem.”
Her hand grabbing the knob of the interrogation room door, she turns and looks at him.
“You see Carcosa is already here. And so is Castaigne.”
He flicks the zippo to flame and lights another cigarette.
Cue Music End of Episode.